Does 4.1 support using the TCP Offload Engine with iSCSI?

[JRedmond]

Does anyone know if 4.1 supports using the TCP Offload Engine with iSCSI? Many of the sites originally said this would be a feature but the KB is not updated. Any info on this would be great, thanks.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100614...

[admin]

I don't know if this helps or not, but I did see this new KB come out today:

Rick Blythe

Social Media Specialist

VMware Inc.

[amiterjain]

Follow the link to release notes https://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere4/doc/vsp_41_new_feat.html#storage

"iSCSI Hardware Offloads. vSphere 4.1 enables 10Gb iSCSI hardware offloads (Broadcom 57711) and 1Gb iSCSI hardware offloads (Broadcom 5709). See the ESX Configuration Guide, the ESXi Configuration Guide, and the iSCSI SAN Configuration Guide."

But seems it is only for Broadcom adapters.

[Andy_Banta]

4.1 has built-in support for the Broadcom 57711 and 5709 adapters, provided the adapters are licensed.

An iSCSI HBA DDK is also available, allowing other vendors to write ESX-compatible HBA drivers for their cards or chips. Other vendors do have work underway, and I'd expect other HBA drivers to be available at some point.

Andy

[bob1971]

I can tell you that after loading ESXi 4.1, my Broadcom 5709's showed up as iSCSI hba's. Unfortunately, according to the docs: "Broadcom iSCSI adapters do not support IPv6 and Jumbo Frames." I will confirm that I spent a few hours trying to get it to work with jumbo frames and until I went with the default mtu, it would not work.

This may be a dumb question, but are there any arguments for staying with software iscsi and jumbo frames versus moving to hardware without jumbo frames enabeled?